Year: 2008

Blogging about blog ads is a sin. (Don’t worry, it’s not a sales pitch.)

filed under Categories Uncategorized

So reader Chance let me know that an ad for some “sexy webchat” site, featuring a photo of a bikini-clad lady’s bottom, turned up in my Project Wonderful ads in the sidebar yesterday. I don’t normally reload my page during the day, and my Project Wonderful ads are set to “auto-approve,” but I do read my comments via e-mail notification, so thanks to Chance for the warning. That ad just seemed a little out of character for my site, here, so apologies to anyone turned off by it.

As I said, I just have Project Wonderful auto-approve my ads, as for whatever reason, there are a number of advertisers who place ads for two or three hours at a time, and I’d rather not be logging into PW and manually-approving ad requests every hour. I’ve now set my preferences there to reject Not Safe For Work ads, but I’ll try to monitor the ads a little more closely in the future.

In other news:

  • Out in your finer stores this past Wednesday:


    It’s been years since we’ve had a newsstand presence for Mr. Snart and his creator, Marc Hansen…Ralph Snart has had an online strip for a while, all of which have since been printed in book form and available from said finer stores, as well as from Mr. Hansen himself at his site.

    I didn’t follow the online adventures, simply because I have a hard time keeping up with online comic strips, period (except, of course, for America’s only comic store strip). And we carried all the online strip reprint books, but for whatever reason, I didn’t pick any of them up. Can’t tell you why, exactly…maybe I didn’t just feel like jumping back into a comic I hadn’t read in years by picking up trade paperbacks. Who knows?

    Well, after reading this new issue, I have refound my Snart love and will be obtaining those trades in short order. It’s just as grotesque and immature and hilarious as I remember, and it’s good to have it back, even if just for a three issue series. No one draws twisted, distended musculature quite like Hansen, and his linework is immaculate. As are the beer and vomit jokes. Ah, good times.

  • Following up on all my Cat from Outer Space talk from a couple of weeks ago, pal Dorian presents, as part of his ongoing Paperback Book Club series, a copy of the Cat from Outer Space novelization. Boy, that brings back some memories.
  • The shocking return of…Licensable Bear™ – BEHOLD:

No amount of logic can prepare you…

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…for the overwhelmingly adorable sight of Kid Spock and Baby Scotty:


The splash page for the issue is pretty good, too…it’s supposed to represent the “de-aging” process the two characters endure in this story:


…but it looks more like Spock and Scotty have invited their bratty lookalike kid nephews along for the adventure, like the 23rd century equivalents of Pipeye, Pupeye, Poopeye, and Peepeye.

images from Star Trek #42 (Jan ’77) – art by Alden McWilliams

The morning news.

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from Batman #85 (Aug 1954), reprinted in Batman #182 (Jul/Aug 1966)


Looking at the dates of the two different printings of this story…and, in fact, of all the panels I’ve posted this week…I’m always a tiny bit surprised that it’s so short of a gap. Twelve years doesn’t seem that long, but, then again, conventional wisdom at the time was that comics’ readership experienced significant turnovers, with most readers only sticking around for a few years (or months). Twelve years was probably plenty of time for an old story to be “new” again to most of the audience.

So, how many of you folks out there have been reading the same comic book series (more or less, including “reboots” or “new #1s” — you know, where it’s essentially the same series, without a significant gap between “volumes”) for more than ten years? Twenty? Thirty?

I don’t have any continuous series I’ve been reading more than thirty years, but there are more than a handful I’ve read for over twenty. I’ve been reading Hulk comics, in their various incarnations, since 1983, for example.

Thinking about this sort of thing reminds me that there was only a five year gap between the last Golden Age Flash comic and the introduction of the Silver Age Flash. Always seemed like that should have been more of a break than what it was, given its relative significance. (As I recall, one of the reasons for introducing a new Flash was that, five years later, most of their readership would probably not have been around for the previous Flash character.)

Of course, all this has precious little to do with the actual content of the scan. I just found it amusing, is all. Whoever wrote those headlines was really emotionally invested in how Batman comported himself, wasn’t he?

Happy Fourth of July, where applicable.

“Can Batman and Robin outwit such a cunning trio?”

filed under Categories batman, cutaway


Now while that does look like an impressive lair for this trio of Batman baddies, one can’t help but notice some…deficiencies. I’m willing to entertain the possibility that this cutaway does exclude necessities that, perhaps, were located in the area that was cut away, allowing for a more uncluttered view.

Even with that being so, the Vulture doesn’t appear to have much room for anything:


Sure, he’s got plenty of room to play “Dogfight” with his model pla…er, I mean, “generate and practice strategy for future aerial criminal endeavors.” I’m guessing he has room, maybe, for a fold-out couch or something…maybe that was against the opposite wall.


The kitchen’s not bad…pretty sizable, and while I’m sure we’re missing something that’s been cut away, the presence of pots and pans implies at least some form of stove…unless they’re being used to prepare cold foods, or, ahem, they’re being used to address the bathroom problem (see below).

I can’t tell if that’s some kind of vent about the fridge, or a stack of really large pancakes, or big serving platters, or what. (EDIT: Read the comments to see me get schooled in the ways of ’50s refrigerators.) I don’t see a door to get in, either.

The Fox has it pretty good:


Plenty of room, even has a stool, and lots of theoretical not-visible-in-this-cutaway space for a bed, or some kind of barcalounger.

It’s the Shark that got screwed, at least when it comes to headroom:


At least he seemed to be reasonably furnished, and plus, he has direct access to the ocean. I don’t see anyway way in, but since he’s beneath ground level, maybe there are some exterior “basement access” doors we’re not seeing.

Another thing I’m not seeing is any kind of plumbing, which again, might be obscured by the cutaway. Or maybe there’s an outhouse just off panel we’re not seeing. Or, as I referred to earlier, perhaps those pots and pans are being used to collect their leavings for later disposal (i.e. dumped into the ocean). The Shark’s got it easy…he’s already got a big hole in the middle of his floor….

images from Detective Comics #253 (Mar 1958), reprinted in Batman #176 (Dec 1965)

Mike’s New Comics Day Lunchtime Update 3010.

filed under Categories lunchtime update

Happy Hellboy Day! Our Hellboy promotional material showed up…today, an hour and a half after we opened. To be fair, UPS did try to deliver it Monday, at 7:30 in the morning when we weren’t here, according to the tracking info. (In our defense, nobody is at their stores at 7:30 in the morning anywhere on our block.) And apparently they tried again on Tuesday, though I was here all that day and never saw a UPS truck.

But all is well now, and we’re having a sale on Hellboy books, and we’re giving away bookmarks and posters, and everyone’s happy. The end. (Or…is it?)

Employee from the game store next door, looking at a copy of Superman #75, the “Death of Supes” ish: “Say, is this the issue that came with the memorial armband?”

Me: “Yes, it certainly is.”

Employee Aaron: “Mike, did you wear the Death of Superman memorial armband?”

Me: “Yes, but not on my arm.”

Employee from the game store: “Oh, man.”

Employee Aaron: “Mike, this Echo comic book….”

Me: “Yes?”

Employee Aaron: “You realize it’s about super-boobs, right?”

Me: “…”

"No! Not the kids’ holiday parade!"

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Wrecker, you jerk:


Here’s a closer look at that “million dollar” mural:


The microscope is a nice touch.

And apparently “Mr. Mxyzptlk” is another popular balloon in Gotham’s parade:

images from Detective #197 (July 1953), reprinted in Batman #218 (Jan/Feb 1970)